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Landscapes in the Bible (Endnotes)

1. Mark Twain, op. cit., Innocents Abroad, p. 446. This picture shows the dense forest that once existed on both banks of the Jordan and was the haunt of many wild animals, including lions and bears. Now that forest has been completely deforested by the governments of Israel and Jordan so it cannot provide cover for guerrilla warfare. Close

2. The use of the word “grass” is misleading to the average Western reader due to our tendency to identify and label everything and also to Western attention to nice lawns of green grass. When a Westerner hears “grass,” he thinks of the green, carefully cut grass that surrounds houses and makes parks and golf courses so attractive. In the East, especially in the biblical period, no one had a lawn of nicely cut grass, and to Easterners “grass” is the mixed vegetation (not bushes or trees) that grows in the open field. Westerners would call it “a field of weeds” and then label each individual weed and flower. To the Easterner, the open field is “grass.” Close